"Metro International newspapers Toronto edition reports that more Indian companies are opening back doors into the United States by setting up shop in Canada. The issue of outsourcing, offshoring and nearshoring has become a hot issue, with the 2004 presidential election less than a week away. Candidate John Kerry has said he will close the tax loophole that makes it advantageous to outsource call centers."

"With Keyhole, you can fly like a superhero from your computer at home to a street corner somewhere else in the world - or find a local hospital, map a road trip or measure the distance between two points," said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president, Product Management. "This acquisition gives Google users a powerful new search tool, enabling users to view 3D images of any place on earth as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other points of interest. Keyhole is a valuable addition to Google's efforts to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

WorldSpace Satellite Radio recently launched a WorldSpace Lounge for music lovers in Chennai. The lounge will be in Phase III of Spencer’s and has been designed as a unique experience zone that enables customers to listen to their choice of music on any of WorldSpace’s channels in a comfortable and non-intrusive ‘lounge’ ambience.

Renowned music director, current heart throb of millions of Indians and people worldwide, A R Rehman hit the news today for a very different kind of reason.

He's been awarded a compensation of Rs.50000 by the District Consumer Redressal Forum, Chennai (North), in a complaint of deficiency of service he had filed against the State Bank of India, Overseas Branch on Rajaji Salai.

HCL Technologies’ September quarter results were rather lacklustre, with revenues growing 5.9 per cent sequentially, much lower than industry growth rates and the 14 per cent growth it had managed in the June quarter.

The software services business grew 6 per cent sequentially, with the organic side of the business growing at a lower rate of 4.7 per cent.

...

On the positive side, HCL Tech paid an interim dividend of Rs 4 per share, which is expected to be maintained. With a dividend yield of 4.34 per cent, downside for the stock is rather limited.

Monday, October 25, 2004

HCL Technologies has posted a small gain of 1.28% increase in net profit at Rs 90.75 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2004 as compared to Rs 89.6 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2003.

I've seen this on rare ocassions. Thunderbird simply doesn't get the new messages any more. It sits idle as if there ain't anymore new messages to be delivered to the inbox, although there'd be quite a few messages (about 93 in todays case) on the email server.

A shutdown and restart of the application takes care of the situation. However, IMO, that's not the way it's supposed to work ! :(

Update : This might not be an issue for those who sutdown down their machine or email application each day (or almost). I never shutdown Thunderbird till my machine gets rebooted (or there's some ocassional problem) once in 2/3 months or so. Hence that's quite a long time to show a behavior like that noted above. Nonetheless ...

Thursday, October 21, 2004

"The best way to learn leadership is to practice it. Remember, just because you are not in a position of leadership does not mean that you cannot lead others. Care about other people's success. Add value to their lives. Not only will that make you a better leader, you will be a better person."

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Just love those words. This is far from where a majority of people/communities are going (IMHO). A lot do no like listening to a different or opposing point of view. They make all out efforts to gag, remove or execute :) In the slightly better form (but equally dangerous nonetheless) case, they make a charade of listening and do nothing.

BTW, these words were widely attributed to Voltaire, but cannot be found in his writings. With good reason. The phrase was invented by a later author as an epitome of his attitude. It appeared in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre.

Monday, October 18, 2004

A US management guru has advised Microsoft to acquire Research in Motion and pay closer attention to open-source projects on mobile devices, or face oblivion

Management guru Clayton Christensen has a paradoxical answer for Microsoft to the challenge posed by open source: invest in Linux applications for handheld devices.

...

Open source is a clear disruption to Microsoft and the software industry in general, Christensen told attendees at the Future Forward technology conference here on Thursday.

"Where Linux takes root is in new applications, like Web servers and handheld devices. As those get better, applications will get sucked off the desktop onto the Internet, and that's what will undo Microsoft," he said.

You can now get your own permanent sub domain at no cost (free of charge) and also have few email-ids @ your domain name.

What this means is that whenever you dial-up or DSL connect or Cable connect to your ISP, you can have your random IP address, say X.Y.Z.A always point to something like howkewl.hopto.org. How cool can it get ? :)

There is an expiry date for LPG cylinders. Expired Cylinder is not safe for use and may cause accidents. In this regard please be cautious at the time of accepting any LPG cylinder from the vendor. Here is how we can check the expiry of LPG cylinders - On the stem of the cylinder the expiry date is coded alpha numerically as A or B or C or D and some two digit number following this. e.g. D06. The alphabets stand for quarters - A for March Qtr, B - June Qtr, C -Sept Qtr and D- December Qtr. The digits stand for the year till it is valid. Hence D04 would mean December qtr of 2004.

Google's Desktop represents a privacy disaster just waiting to happen, a rival has warned. David Burns, Copernic CEO, says users should know that the giant ad broker intends to mix public and private queries in the future, leveraging its key moneyspinning product: contextual advertising.

"If you lined people and said, 'Stick your hand up if you want Google to know what pictures you have, and what MP3 files you have,' I don't think many would." Burns had offered these capabilities to partners before, but received somepushback.

...

Google Desktop Search allows users to opt out of sending the company back detailed usage data, but it isn't possible to firewall it completely. Much more ominously, reckons Burns, Google's product manager Marissa Mayer said she expected the private queries to generate more hits for google.com. Most people, she believed, would choose to combine personal and web searches resulting in more revenue for Google's ad business.

Article makes comparisons of price of stuff in India and abroad. Some hypothesis about manufacturing, doesn't touch upon import taxes, excise duty, the bigger game of protectionism in some areas, and probably a lot of other things. However, definitely a very interesting read.

A pill-sized brain chip has allowed a quadriplegic man to check e-mail and play computer games using his thoughts. The device can tap into a hundred neurons at a time, and is the most sophisticated such implant tested in humans so far.

The article is definitely an interesting read. Try to follow the series (if you have the time).Source.

I touched upon this here in an earlier post. Looks like there are other nice things to note here too.

Snippet:

Microsoft's emerging market strategy seems to be low-cost, limited functionality, local language versions of Windows XP (called Starter Editions). This is a flawed approach, as I wrote recently on my weblog: “Microsoft is caught between piracy, non-consumption and Linux in the developing markets. Rather than low-cost, reduced functionality Windows, it should look at reducing cost of the desktop computers (think thin clients) and running Windows off centralised platforms, with a pricing of $1 per month. Not just the limited versions, but the full-featured versions. But this requires Microsoft to think not like a monopoly but like a utility company.” [Also see some of the comments from readers as part of this post.]

Does anyone exactly know what the "non-commercial use only" subscribes to ? Would using it on my work desktop classify as commercial use ?

Update(18-Oct-2004) : I wouldn't like to read too much into the order/speed with which Google responds to user questions. However, it still leaves me with a doubtful feeling. I had earlier (on 15-Oct-2004) asked Google for their stand/take on this "licensing policy" and am yet to receive a reply. A query that I sent on 17-Oct-2004 about "thunderbird support" got answered in about a day. Leaves me wondering if their legal department is still sleeping/wondering or whether there's something for an end user like me to be scared about !

Once upon a time, a lot of companies were asking for "bonds" to be signed up by employees which would prevent them from switching to another company within a certain period. Now, according to the article, it's just got even more stricter in these (Wipro, TCS, Infosys, Satyam) companies. This custom was more prominent amogst freshers. Later, at some point of time almost all companies did away with such practices understanding the true nature of freedom, belief and competition - or so I'd like to make others believe :)

However, it looks like history is going to repeat itself, as usual. The article quoted below talks about such practices coming up once again. It's unfortunate that companies resort to such tactics rather than being able to offer what is desired by those people quitting. Provide a challenging work environment, show commitment to employees and motivate them as necessary. Not the dumb headed way.

Afterall, whatz the point in trying to retain someone if they are no longer interested in you ? More so, would they cause more "harm" by continuing to stay rather than simply going away ? All these factors, good sense and a good economy prompted companies to remove such shackles.

... Companies like Wipro, TCS, Infosys and Satyam all have introduced bonds for freshers, making them sign agreements to work for a period of 12-24 months. ...

Update (18-Oct-2004) : The broadband policy describes broadband as 256kbps (it's another issue that worldwide it's generally considered to be 512kbps) and the Communications minister had hinted that it should be made available in the Rs.500-700 range.

What I still am skeptical about is whether the policy and interpreters consider "broadband" to be always on and whether this Rs.500-700 range will be for an always on _and_ unlimited transfer or whether the service providers will start their old nasty schemes, once again, offering 10hr/month or 300mb at 256kbps beating the whole purpose of such a policy !! Let's wait and see.

As a gesture to Google which provides me My Blog, I considered turning on Google's Ad Sense program on my page. However, the gamut of conditions and policies are daunting. I'd have been much happier if they had a "I don't need money from you, please keep it" button or something :) It would have saved me a lot of trouble and easily helped me to install their Ad Sense Program.

If someone knows that I'm missing something and there is indeed such a provision, please let me know ! I'd be happy to turn on that service as a way to return my mini favor to Google.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

"RollingStone.com has a revealing article detailing how retail giant Wal-Mart is making loud noises about throwing its weight around in order to get significantly better bulk prices on CDs. Says one industry executive, 'This wasn't framed as a gentle negotiation, it's a line in the sand -- you don't do this, then the threat is [your product is dropped].' This is the first time a big player has attempted this sort of hardball move on the labels, and the labels may be forced to deal, as Wal-Mart sells 1 out of every 5 retail CDs. Monopoly one, meet monopoly two."

Google Inc. today announced a beta desktop search application that enables users to search their email, files, web history, and chats. Called Google Desktop Search, this new application makes it possible for users to find information on their computers as fast and easily as they can search the web with Google.

"Google Desktop Search brings the power of Google to your personal information on your own computer. As easily as searching Google, you can instantly search your files, local email, the web pages you have seen, and more," said Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products." It's free, installs quickly, and keeps completely up to date. Google Desktop Search represents a quantum leap in access to your own information."

...

- Easy access to desktop results via Google.com Search. Google Desktop Search enables users to search both their computer and the web simultaneously. When users search through Google.com (either from the homepage or the Google Toolbar), Google Desktop Search runs the same search in parallel on the user's computer. If Google Desktop Search finds relevant results, those results are added to the Google.com search results page. This means, users don't need to decide before they search whether to search the web or their computer. From a single start point, they get both.

It is currently available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above. It requires a minimum of 128MB of RAM, and a 400MHz (or faster) Pentium processor is recommended. Google Desktop Search is available in English today and there are plans to make it available in other languages.

Gelsinger, in India for IDF (Intel Developer Forum), met senior government officials and tried to impress upon them that WiMax was the best bet the country had for spreading broadband connectivity throughout the country, especially in rural India and a proper spectrum allocation was a must for it to take off.

In a case that exposes the intellectual-property risks of outsourcing in India, a small San Carlos software company has sued Mumbai police for refusing to investigate the alleged theft of proprietary source code by an employee at its Indian subsidiary.

Sandeep Jolly, the founder and chief executive of Jolly Technologies, said U.S. technology companies should beware of the risks of doing business in his native land at a time when many are taking advantage of the cost savings of offshoring and entrusting sensitive software development and testing work to Indian contractors. Protection of intellectual property is still a new concept for lawmakers, police and prosecutors, he said.

I see a constant bitter struggle in a majority of IT services companies in building competencies in particular domains. Most of them want to be able to build strengths without investing the necessary time. There isn't a clear cut focussed plan and effort for that either. And, such things can't come out of wishful thinking !

BTW, what kind of R&D investments do all these top notch companies make ? How much of their revenue or profits is used for R&D ? And, what is the kind of R&D they get involved in ?

More often than not, they'd like to retain the flexibility of having to move people around to plug "gaps". Very rarely do people stay on teams or a particular domain for a long time. Staying on one team causes individual growth to be often stunted as a resuilt or isn't the best possible thing that can always happen.

In fact, it's also "socially" a "surprise" for people to stay in one place, one team for a long time. People start to question the "saleability" of the individual !! :)

I guess this is good enuf for a start. I'm getting tired ! :) Maybe another day on this topic.

Google, one of the world's largest search engines, plans to expand its India operations to undertake new research and development projects aimed at better serving its worldwide users.

On their first visit to India and Bangalore, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin said they were upbeat about the R&D activities being carried out by their Indian subsidiary, thanks to the incredible talent and other resources available in the country.

"It's our first visit to this great country and we are enjoying the trip immensely. We have seen a lot of incredible talent here. We feel this is the right place for us to be expanding our R&D work. We will be expanding here just as we are doing in the US and Europe," said Page.

What does $4 billion get Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page? "Well it brought us to India, didn't it?" they said, kicking off their first whistle-stop tour of India, which they hope will end with a rickshaw ride back to California. Google's new Bangalore facility, which they visited, will be devoted to research into new products to expand Google's portfolio. Seventy percent of the facility is dedicated to search, 20% to Gmail, and the rest in other areas, giving you an idea what a huge priority Gmail is to Google. The new Hyderabad office will be a support center for AdWords, and be home to engineering, human resources, online sales and services. Staying true to its famous slogan, Google's India offices will not be "evil" and operate on United States time, keeping employees at work while their families and countrymen sleep, but will run a normal India workday.

Most people know about the numerous love affairs of Jawaharlal Nehru, most notably the one with Lady Mountbatten. But what about the Mahatma? In India, he has been glorified to an extent where any talk of him outside the spiritual dimension is considered blasphemous. Fortunately, the mahatma was a great deal more honest than his present-day worshippers/hagiographers and even a cursory reading of his autobriography will reveal a very human side to his personality, including his various experiments with fighting off *temptation*.

It's interesting to note that people (more so Scoble) are trying to (hopefully, not just appear to) reach out via blogs to the user community and get inputs/feedback and present it to the internal customers.

But will it ever change what M$ is ?! That's like trying to change the "Genetic DNA" of the organization. And, it's a very hard thing to do. For a company which is clueless (or perenially refuses to acknowledge) about what is the problem with the stuff that it doles out, how can these self professed "Messiahs" change things around ?

FWIW, there's an interesting strategy in OSDC (Organization Design Structure and Change). It's called co-optation. If someone (say your enemy/rival company, opponent camp) etc is dead against you on something, invite him/her to the table and offer them to be a part of creating the solution to "fix" the "problem".

And as Dilbert would probably say, once you've bitten _that_ bullet, there's no going back ! :)

Do you know your online rights? Have you received a letter asking you to remove information from a Web site or to stop engaging in an activity? Are you concerned about liability for information that someone else posted to your online forum? If so, this site is for you.

If I go at the rate that I'm going and get bolder about what I write, I might get slapped with such a notice some day or another some time in the distant future. Maybe the place mentioned below will help me ! :)

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

CEO Steve Jobs says among other practices, it's "saying no to 1,000 things" so as to concentrate on the "really important" creations

In an era when most technology outfits have tightened their belts to adapt to a slower-growing market, one company stands out for forging ahead on innovation: Apple Computer. Others have slashed R&D and focused on incremental advances to existing product lines. Not Apple.

I crashed out for around 11hrs last night - from 9.15pm or so till about 8.15am today morning (about 11hrs) !! I don't like to sleep more than 5-6hrs a day (in fact as less as possible - sleep is a waste of time IMO) and that's what I'd been keeping up for a long time recently, but then my system just didn't like it or take it anymore y'day :)

I was reaching Archies comics on the bed (a bad place to be if you want to stay awake) and didn't fully know when I exactly dozed off. Even missed a few calls from my friends (didn't even hear my phone ringing !).

India is threatening to displace the United States as a destination for foreign direct investment, according to the latest FDI Confidence Index, an annual survey of executives from the world's largest companies conducted by management consulting firm AT Kearney.

It looks like foreign investors are only just beginning to discover that the legal system in India is not as good as the developed world (oh oh!). The lack of an effective legal system in India poses a very serious threat to India's free market aspirations. This particular case is only the tip of an enormous iceberg.

Maybe I haven't stressed the importance enough, so here goes. I easily see the lack of an effective legal system as the "single" "biggest" road block to India's progress.

Those interested in lasting solutions to India's criminal justice system's problems, which are a subset of the problems of the Indian legal system, would do well to study the recommendations of the National Police Commission available online at

HCL Technologies has announced the acquisition of the minority shareholder's stake of 23 percent in Shipara Technologies, held by Rao Insulating Company Limited. Shipara Technologies thus becomes a fully owned subsidiary of HCL Technologies henceforth.

Matt Haughie has a good rant on why, from a buyer's standpoint, Paypal is a great way to buy things online.

I'm lazy. If I want to buy one of your custom shirts off your site using paypal, it's about three clicks and a quick login that my browser already knows. It goes like this: 1) I want it! 2) hit checkout 3) login and 4) paid! It doesn't matter if I have money in paypal or if it just gets pulled from my credit card on file, it's still just a few clicks and I'll have a shirt in tomorrow's mail.

When I hit a full-on shopping cart payment system, I see forms and forms mean tedious work, and I know I have to dump my credit card into yet another database that I blindly trust won't get compromised anytime soon, but mostly it's the work involved that diminishes my impulse buy.

Monday, October 11, 2004

Here comes the most surreptitious, smartest and almost foolproof move by mobile companies to fleece customers. It's called duplicate messaging.

Take the case of Meena. A Delhi Idea connection holder, she received the same SMS 25 times, that too while roaming, from a relative holding a BSNL connection in Jabalpur. With no device to stop the repeats, Meena would be billed for one message 25 times - on STD rates. Her kin, too, paid Rs 15 instead of the 60 paise she would have if the SMS had gone only once.

Generations of Indians have grown up recounting jokes about how the only contribution their nation has made to the world is the invention of zero. Innovation was something other people did.

That's no longer the case. At research labs across the country, Indians are creating technologies specifically designed for the nation's multilingual masses and its poor. In doing so, the country is emerging as a research hub for technologies geared to the Third World.

And, believe it or not, this is precisely what I've been dreaming about and wanting since I started blogging more than a year ago. Given that time is always precious and news, info is my major food I actually wanted something that could tune me onto news, rss when I'm on the move, am at the gym (ok, ok, that's been my desperate dream since I quite aerobics about a year - but an hour or more at gym is time lost on catching up!), ...

However, I still think I'm quite far from actually experiencing podcasting in such scenarios. Anyway it's at least good to know that it's now starting to emerge.

Was slightly warned about the theate, and it was still low my expected standards - will probably not go there again. The theater guys had actually tried to deceive the public about the movie language (IMO).

The posters on the outside and most of the places talked about "Around the world in 80 days" whereas when the movie started it was a dubbing in the regional language (Tamil, "Uzhagam Sutrum Sullan" - meaning "World Touring Spy" - what the heck ?!). That was a big let down for me. I've nothing personally against the language, just that I don't like/prefer to watch English movies in a regional language. That's me :)

Quite often, I simply like to post an article that I'm currently reading in FeedDemon to my blog. The easiest way to use the "Blog with w.bloggar" kind of option. I've also wanted to add the source of the article (which newsfeed it came from, author, etc) while blogging it in my blog. Here are some cool tags for those.

Read the story here. Talks about M$'s battle with Burst.com and the judge having opened up some documents for the public to view.

As he says,

One thing to keep in mind here is that documents are unsealed when the judge decides that it is more important for the public to know what is in them than to not know, so Judge Motz, too, thinks this is worth your time.

I love this guys approach to software licensing. In fact I use his RSS aggregator FeedDemon both at home and work and this couldn't have been possible had he asked for multiple purchases of the license.

I've come across Paypal so many times, but have never bothered to find out how it operates. I was just about to sign up and am a little bit confused about the implications that it could have for people based off India. (Will read the complete details later) In the meanwhile, if someone has had an experience with Paypal either in India or out of it, I'd be glad to hear.

that I saw about 5-6 months ago. Since I moved location from Avadi to Vadapalani, I've lost out on watching my favorite comedy channels (Zee English, Star World) and Cartoon Network due to the CAS (conditional Access System) / STB (Set Top Box) fiasco in Chennai.

Here's a list of comedy serials that I like - it's a big list :) I love comedy :)

However, it appears that both channels haven't changed their comedy programs much from what I saw earlier. Good for me - till I get the STB or DTH - I won't be missing anything :)

As for Cartoon Network, yes I'm probably missing all the fun - there's even a new Archie's serial !! :(

I'd have appreciated if they had some kind of resemblance to what'd be in the paper. Right now, there appear to be too many categories for me to choose. While that is good for being selective, it doesn't help if I want to get a snapshot of the actual paper or hot news or some such. Let's wait and see.

I hate those people who take up (sub)domain URLs and never bother to update/use them. Case in instance - Chennai Blog, Masala, Sudhir. I've seen some of these right from 1998 or so without any/much change !!

Friday, October 08, 2004

We've been having an animated discussion for a quite some time now - about .5hrs or so !! :)

The topic is the word "couple" - what does it mean - two, more than two, close to two, a few, ... ?!

One of us, Suresh, is very adamant that it's only 2 (acceding for something close to two, say 2.5).

Krishnamoorthy, Senthil and I are maintaining our stance that it can also mean a few (not necessarily two or something necessarily close to it). We've Dictionary.com to back us up for the informal version which can mean few (what is few) ?

I'm not contesting that couple can't mean 2, all I'm saying is it can also mean few (which is not necessarily too close to two, but not even obscenely large). So, what do you think ?

Anyway, the context in which this whole discussion started was the following mail sent out in 2000 (read it from the forwarded mail).

And, all this is our kind of a Friday evening happy hour fun :) :)

And, just for a moment, when I saw the spate of mails (rather subjects' thru' newmail) that I had received, on this topic, I was astonished at the technical expertise that we have at store here ;-)

Anyway, as has already been pointed out, the posting to ace was probably a result of misinterpretation of the possible usage of the word "couple". Certainly a very good candidate for a (Weak ^ n) ace.

For the sake of technical accuracy of the definition of the word couple, here's something to feed on, from www.dictionary.com

cou ple (kpl) n.

1.Two items of the same kind; a pair. 2.Something that joins or connects two things together; a link. 3.(used with a sing. or pl. verb) a.Two people united, as by betrothal or marriage. b.Two people together. 4.Informal. A few; several: a couple of days. 5.Physics. A pair of forces of equal magnitude acting in parallel but opposite directions, capable of causing rotation but not translation.

BTW, can we try and get back to the technical contents of the mail ??

Thanks,Sudhir.P

P.S: Couldn't help sending out this mail especially since I had received more than 10 mails (more of the copies rather than actuals) as replies on this, with nothing to address my actual problem !! Have fun ;-)

XYZ wrote:>> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------->> Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 18:55:28 +0530>> From: Me>> To: local mailing list >> Subject: Problems with Reflection X>> >> Hi,>> >> I'm using Reflection X (from Rational) to connect to my Linux box. I'm running>> 6.2 (from PCQ CD) with KDE as my default desktop. I'm unable to stay connected>> for more than a few hours at a stretch. After a couple of hours, say 5-6, the>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>> >> ACE !! WHAT TIMING !!>> >> whole session just blanks out. I can see only the outline of all the windows,>> but not their contents and can't do anything with them.>> >> I have no such problems when I connect to a Solaris box.>> >> Any ideas why this happens ??>> >> Thanks,>> Sudhir.P

IBM India, C-DAC and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, have signed a co-operation agreement to set up an ‘Open Source Software Resource Centre’ (OSSRC) in Mumbai with an investment of $1.2 million over the next three years.

Under this co-operation agreement, C-DAC, IIT Bombay and IBM would undertake activities to foster OSS development, enhance the understanding of the OSS model by imparting training and promote the development of content in areas of education and general awareness of OSS across the country.

Nowadays, there are more and more sites and services coming up that offer a lot of fabulous (in each and everyone's opinion) things for free. Stuff like Blogger, Orkut, Flickr, FeedBurner, ...

However, AFAIK, none of these sites use HTTPS or other forms of secure communication while doing a sign-up or logging into their site. Understandably, they aren't passing around the password in plain text, but I'd be much more happier to see HTTPS for a start.

The issue becomes slightly compounded because I'm responsible for what I'm (supposedly) putting up on such sites and if the access is not secure, how can one say with certainty.

Internet cafés in parts of India face closure if new regulations forcing them to provide police with names and addresses of all their customers are introduced. Under the new rules, visitors to Internet cafés will have to show their ID cards or be photographed.

It's quite coincedental that I've been thinking about FAQs in the past couple of days. Just a day/two ago, it occured to me that a community maintained Wiki might be a good FAQ for a lot of trivial unofficial information (probably official too). In a huge mailing list that I'm part (and owner) of, there are quite a few oft repeated questions. No one has had the patience to build an FAQ out of those. Very recently I proposed that a Wiki might be a nice way to start maintaining that FAQ 'cos that way updation isn't a bottleneck. Will have to try that out sometime.

In the meanwhile, if someone's aware of any particular problems with Wikis, please let me know.

IT major HCL Technologies and Business Process Outsourcing, today announced that it has been ranked as a market leader in META Group’s METAspectrumSM report for Offshore Outsourcing. META Group is a leading provider of information technology (IT) research, advisory services and strategic consulting.

Skype Technologies made a name for itself providing a free Internet telephone program to users around the world. Now it's time to cash in. The company announced today it's planning to launch a paid service for businesses and expand its premium offerings.

Has anybody or any of your friends/relatives have undergone this LASIK surgery? If so, please share your experiences on how reliable and safe doing this surgery and any other relevant details about this?

Consolidated Replies on this topic:

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My friend had this surgery at aravinth eye hospital, coimbatore, 3 years back and till now no problems for him. The cost was around 21K totally. It just takes 20 minutes for the surgery and I guess you have to take a week rest after that. Before the operation he has had a power of 6. Initially after the operation the power was NIL, and after one year it became 0.5 and now it is 0.75 and he hopes that it wont increase further.

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I underwent LASIK last January (I had a power of -9), and my sight is near normal. There is not any guarantee for zero power after surgery & it has post-operation infection risk. Go for it only if you have very high power.------------------------------

-> What was ur eye power before and after correction?

Before : it was 3 After : guess its 0.5.

-> How much it costed?

It was 21000 for both eyes

-> How many days did u take leave includign before and after surgery?

10 days altogetther. 1 day before the surgery and the remaining after.

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Two years ago, a cousin sister of mine came down to chennai for this surgery from Bombay at Sankara' Netralaya. She arrived in chennai on a wednesday -- with thick power glasses of 8 (left) and 8.5 (right) on her eyes. She spent just some days in chennai - during which she got the initial checkup (full day) done and the surgery for left eye (friday) and right eye (monday). She was back on a train - free from her 8-8.5+ glasses on next wednesday. She has not been using any glasses anymore since then...though the doctors said that she had potential to loose upto 0.5 again over years.

..cost was approx 14k per eye !!

Dr Rajesh Fogla did the procedure on her in Sankara's...

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My opinion is . It is good to get that surgery. But no seems to give guarantee that you will not need lens any more.

One more thing you will have some issues with your vision like glare, unable to ride vehicles at night for atleast 3 months.

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I have been wearing specs for the last 12 years. I am from Madurai and I had close contacts with some eye specialists from Aravind Eye hospital. I attended a counselling session from one of the chief doctors there for the same surgery.

They said that after the surgery, there would be a permanent glare and should avoid driving in the night. Moreover, if you are going to work on computers, its better to avoid surgery. No doctors actually tell this to the patients as none would come forward for the surgery. If the patient is aged 35+ , it is suggested to go ahead with the surgery. So, please think twice about the surgery if the patient is young. If the patient is 35+, you can go ahead very well for thesurgery.

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It is not 100% safe. In some cases (maybe ~ 5% - but who wants to figure among that 5%) permanent complications (double vision, dryness of eyes, optic nerve damage) have arisen. Of course most cases have been successful... I can give you more dtls on this..

That's the sure shot way of shooing ourselves, not in the foot, but in the head !!

When India is moving towards global competition, private sector job reservation is the last thing to saddle the comapnies with - an unncessary extra burden due to moronic, thoughtless poll promises by the politicians.

As if reservation weren't enuf at undergraduation, post graduation, government sector jobs, promotions, ... meddling with the private sector is just the worst thing to do. These sectors strive on being the best in the world in the most elegant, efficient way. What advantage will saddling them with incompetency achieve ?

Whatz surprising and amusing to me is that the title talks about "blogging" rather than calling it an interview or transcript or just the usual article. The emphasis on the medium is a bit concerning to me. The message is more important - not the medium.

Is it that the medium is getting the biggest attention / craze of all ?! Or is it that the term "blogging" has become so normal ?

Throwing the ball back in the government's court, TRAI on Friday favoured status quo on the existing cable set-up across the country, including tariffs.

Hmm, these morons can never decide and finalize upon one thing. All that they ended up doing was botch up Chennai's cable viewing public with compulsory CAS (conditional access system) and 99% of the population has not bought an STB (set top box).

Most of the people (including me) don't even have an intention of buying one in the immediate/mid-term future. No one wants to be held ransom by the local cable operator with a so called refundable deposit that'll never come back.

Have started waiting for a full fledged DTH (direct to home) system to come up, but then even there - the broadcasters are playing truant :(

In short, while the whole of India is happily watching all channels, 99% of Chennai is suffering with just a few free channels. Man, do I miss all the comedies (on Zee English and Star) and cartoons (on Cartoon Network).

And that's the kind of expansion happening in a lot of companies in India now. It's boom time for the economy and the industry, and happy switching time for people in the software industry :) Salary hikes during switches, of 30-50% aren't uncommon (rather the norm) and a lot of the head hunters are from MNCs and start ups (or their offshore development centers).

It's tough competition time for all the players in terms of retention capabilities. A challenging period ahead.

Yeah yeah, it's been doing the press rounds lately. M$'s starter edition - one which can run only 3 applications at a time [ when has even a full fledged one been able to run more ? ;-) ] - is going for commercial launch in beginning of 2005. Here's a press report on that.

For instance, the OS has severely limited multitasking to the point where Windows can only run three applications at a time; reverts back to a single default desktop and removes personalization features that allow multiple user accounts on a single PC; and fails to address security concerns by not bundling an antivirus solution, a reliable patching system or materials educating users about risks to their security.

The software also lacks the ability to grow with the users as they become more computer literate.

Just one day after Sun launched "Java 5," a federal jury ruled on Friday in favor of Eastman Kodak Co. in its dispute over Java, in which it alleged Sun Microsystems' world-beating language in fact infringes patents Kodak acquired from Wang Laboratories Inc. in 1997.

The biggest problem is that these service providers don't keep their tarriff plans up2 date on their sites. So, best of luck figuring out what the present pricing policy / services are. The best thing is to call your local representative and ask for details.

And all these guys are still pricy, IMHO :)

We should be getting "true broadband" (read 512kbps) at reasonable (read Rs.1000) prices with no bandwidth cap. That's the international scene at this moment, or so I think.

A relevant portion of the possible attack (preferable to read the complete article)

A Windows XP client will probe for all the preferred network names listed in the wireless client configuration during startup, powersave-wakeup and when the driver reports signal loss for the current network name. Many coporate wireless users configure Windows XP with a business profile (secure network profile) and several other network names including commercial hotspots and home networks (insecure network profiles). Due to this configuration, it is possible to force a client to disclose the list of configured profiles, and then establish a connection to a rogue network using one of the preferred network names. Depending on the configuration of the wireless client, the client will display a bubble message indicating it has joined a different wireless network name.

Go here to read about what Bloglines is doing to make available its database of RSS/ATOM feeds, thus becoming a feed cache in itself. FeedDemon, my favorite feed reader's 1.5 beta already has support for integration with BlogLines.

I've this somewhat strong/mixed feelings about patents in general, including software patents - some of which have been manifesting more often, of late. Before (assuming "if") I write much about my opinions, here's something for you to view from Sun's CEO.

When I got the ADSL connection installed at home, the guy from my service provider didn't even bother to ask me if I knew about viruses, firewalls, spyware, etc.

From stats that I keep hearing from their installation, service, call center folks they must be averaging at least 2500 installations per month. Assuming that even half of these are of 24X7 type (or my 10-8 unlimited download) type, it could pose a serious problem if none of the users had a clue on security.

I've been connected for the past 1.5hrs (since 10.25pm, 1-Oct-2004) or so from home, installing a series of software (most via downloads).

Download speeds have been varying between 10-12KB/sec - nothing of the much hyped 64KBps. A definite let down to say the least. Will have to talk to the service folks tomorrow (actually it'll be Monday 'cos tomorrow is probably a holiday for most of the folks and I too would like a break). Anyway, let me see :)

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Sudhir Parasuram is an employee of HCL Technologies Ltd, working for Cisco Systems Inc. Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved by others before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.